I try and see behind him. He’s alone. I let out an audible sigh of relief and immediately relax. Meg has headed in his direction, is taking his coat from him. She kisses him on his cheek and he smiles. He has always loved our girl; loves her fiercely, more than anyone and anything, I think. He looks around, sees me, raises his eyebrows and gives a tiny wave before Meg whisks him over to the drinks table. I watch them, see Adam and Jack shake hands, and feel for her. She has to tell us both about him – tell us separately. Yet again, I’m surprised by how sad this makes me feel. Maeve walks by with a tray of drinks, tells me the food is ready, to please help myself. I do – to two glasses of champagne – and excuse myself from Brian and Tess before heading to Karen’s bedroom.
I’m quite happy, perched on a pile of coats, looking like the princess and the pea, when he comes to find me.
‘What are you doing in here, in the dark?’ he asks from the doorway.
‘Nothing, just wanted some quiet time.’
‘Can I join you?’
‘Help yourself, if you can find the chair.’ I nod towards another pile of coats sitting on Karen’s bedside chair. He decides to climb on top of them, balancing himself awkwardly – it’s as if he wants to be on the same level as me.
‘How are you?’ he opens with.
‘I’m good.’
‘How’s the job working out?’
‘I’m enjoying it.’
‘So, Karen and Ben, eh? Who’d have thunk?’
I laugh. It was always one of our silly sayings. ‘They seem happy,’ is all I can offer. I see the shadow of his head bob in agreement. ‘You’re alone?’ I can’t help myself.
‘Yes.’
‘No Emma?’
The room is black, but I can feel his eyes sear into me.
‘We’re not together any more, but I would never have brought Emma,’ he says.
The door opens suddenly and a kissing couple hurl themselves into the wall. The kiss is long and hard. They are oblivious to the fact that we are there. Adam and I are still. Silent. The couple pull apart and she speaks.
‘We’d better get back,’ she says, and I feel myself blush in the shadows at Meg’s voice.
The male voice groans. ‘You have no idea what you’re doing to me out there.’
Meg giggles. ‘C’mon, let’s go. My parents are both here for Chrissake …’ She pulls him from the room.
Adam’s voice sounds pained. ‘She means “here at the party”, doesn’t she?’
‘She does,’ I confirm. There’s no way she knew we were in the room.
‘That was awkward …’
‘Yep.’
‘Do you know him? Jack? She seems keen on him, talks about him a lot.’
Did he just say he’d split up from the bimbo whore? And how the fuck does he know about Jack when I’ve only heard about him tonight? Suddenly, the fact that Meg went back to her digs after a couple of days when she normally stays for the whole study break makes sense. I’d felt guilty, thinking that it was because the family, the house dynamic, had changed without her father. Now I know: it must have been to spend more time with a man her father knew about and I didn’t. I’m unexpectedly miffed by this.
‘Beth? Is she keen on him?
‘Yep.’ I reply the only way I can.
‘Are you only ever going to speak to me in short, snappy sentences? We used to be that couple, you know.’
‘Until your lies killed us.’ Yes, my statement is short and snappy, but it’s honest. I hear him take a drink.
‘Do you think there could ever be a time where we could be friends?’
I don’t answer him. I can’t. I want to believe that could be possible. I really do. There is a weighted silence before I say. ‘Maybe.’
‘Anytime soon?’
‘Possibly.’ I hear him climb down off the coats and approach the bed.
‘I miss you,’ he says. ‘I miss everything about you, but most of all I miss being your friend. I miss you being my friend.’
I swallow hard. Thankfully, the sound is drowned out by raucous laughter from the living room. ‘With Karen and Ben together, we’ll have to meet more often than we otherwise would have. I know I’ll have to see you with other people, but thank you for not doing it tonight.’
He coughs. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’
I climb down from my pile of coats, am standing right next to him. ‘Therein lies the problem, Adam. I didn’t know what you’d do. I didn’t know you and Miss Shine had finished. I didn’t know whether you’d bring her or not. I don’t know what you think is appropriate or not, I don’t know what makes a lie okay in your head when it’s not okay in mine. You say you wouldn’t do that, when the truth is you’ve done a lot worse.’
I can feel his sharp intake of breath next to me.
‘Lots of long, un-snappy sentences …’ He sighs. ‘I’ll never stop being sorry for the fool that I’ve been.’
A tiny part of me feels for him. ‘Yeah, well. I’m moving forward, doing something about it.’ I walk towards the door. ‘Maybe you should try that too?’
Outside, I turn down another glass of wine offered to me by Jack. I smile sweetly, banishing the thought of his tongue plundering my daughter’s throat. I search the room for the birthday girl and catch her eye; she beckons me over to where she and Ben are dancing. On the slow walk through the crowd to Karen, I decide three things. One, I will try and like my daughter’s boyfriend, who for some reason I seem to have taken an unreasonable, instant dislike to. Two, I will stay as long as I need to for Karen, but I’m driving home tonight. I look back towards the bedroom door from which Adam has emerged. He looks tired. Broken. Three. As Karen pulls me into a dancing hug, I decide that, someday, not anytime too soon, but someday, I will maybe try to be my husband’s friend again. Maybe.
Chapter Eighteen
This place looks nothing like it did back when Kiera and I met here ten years ago. Gone are the faded velvet booths, in favour of leather lounging chairs. I shift about, unable to get comfortable in the low-slung seat. Sighing aloud, I lean forward and pick up my glass from the table. Hendrick’s and tonic with cucumber peelings – I ordered two in the hope that her choice of drink hasn’t changed. Glancing at my wrist, I see she’s late.
I go through what I know already in my head. Noah is ill. My son has leukaemia. Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. He has just undergone a second, more aggressive course of chemotherapy. No, I can’t meet him. Of course I can’t meet him. Don’t be stupid. This course of chemo needs to have worked. This course of chemo really needs to have worked, or his only option is a stem cell donation.
I have Googled it. I’ve spent hours on the laptop and not learnt a whole lot other than what Kiera originally told me on the phone. I’ve texted her questions and she’s answered them as best she can, but I’m confused about what happens next. Or maybe I’m not. Maybe I do know. I do know. I know what happens next. This course of chemo really needs to work … My head shakes. It’s an involuntary twitch, maybe my brain trying to wrestle the real facts from my skull.
I hear her arrive before I see her. She’s hassled, her hair loose and tousled, not like I remember her wearing it. Her coat is undone, despite the cold outside. I tease her, pointing at my watch, but she’s not in the mood for jokes as she air-kisses my cheeks.
‘I got you a G&T,’ I say. ‘Hendrick’s?’
She takes the glass, frowns at the fact that she has to squeeze in beside me on a sofa, and sips. ‘And bree-a-the,’ she says slowly.
‘You all right?’
‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Sorry I’m late.’ She doesn’t offer a reason why and I don’t ask.
‘Gordon know you’re here?’ I do ask.
‘Yes, Adam, Gordon knows I’m here. I’m not the one who lies to their spouse.’
‘Ouch.’ I’d love to tell her I’m different now, that that’s all in the past, but apparently it isn’t. The remark surprises me though. It seems bitchy, not like her – but then, I remind myself, I d
on’t really know this woman at all, and she has got a lot on her mind at the moment.
‘I’ve been in hell since you called.’ The words are out of my mouth before I can filter them.
She nods. ‘I know, it’s been a shock to us all.’
Her skin, I notice, is blotchy, probably tear-stained. ‘You must be out of your mind with worry.’ I whisper the words.
Her eyes fill immediately but she holds it in, reluctant to cry in front of me.
‘How is he? Noah?’ My hands are clenched together and I’ve squeezed them between the tops of my thighs.
She shakes her head. ‘When we spoke, he was just about to start the second course of chemo. I know we’ve texted but …’
I nod.
‘Well, it hasn’t worked.’ She looks at me, her eyes probing mine. ‘There are certain things that shouldn’t be said by text.’ I know straight away what this means; she told me as much during her original phone call. My eyelids drop. My hands, released from my thighs, knead one another, my right-hand knuckles pressing hard into my left-hand palm.
‘So he definitely needs a bone marrow donation?’
She nods. ‘Well, stem cell donation, proper name: “peripheral blood stem cell donation”. It’s an easier procedure, just a series of hormone injections to the donor for four days before the extraction itself, and that’s then just like giving blood.’ Her shoulders move up and down, a gesture meant to reassure me that the donation is easy, something anyone could do.
‘Is she the only way?’ I will do anything it takes to help him, but I need to know. Now.
‘We’re all being tested now. I’m not a match, we’re waiting on the boys’ results …’
The boys; the brothers who – since Kiera told them recently who Noah’s natural father is – decided to punish me by removing me from their family account. I have, apparently, a ‘questionable moral compass’.
‘Obviously, there’s a chance that some random person on the register could be right, but …’
‘I’ll be tested, immediately.’ I’m almost grabbing my coat and running out through the door.
‘Adam,’ she rests a hand on my knee, ‘I’m sorry, but you know. You know we’ve already been told that a sibling is the most likely match. Meg’s only a half-sibling, but they’d really like to test her, if she’s willing …’
I feel the gin ease its way back up my throat.
‘As I said, some things should never be texted … In the meantime, I’m moving him tomorrow from Great Ormond Street to a specialist unit in Chertsey. There’s an American guy, over on a teaching secondment there, who’s agreed to treat him privately. If we can’t get a donor soon, he’s going to undergo a new treatment from the States. It’s pioneering stuff but his oncologists think it’s worth a try.’
I’m nodding, but I’ve gone straight to limbo. Do not pass ‘Go’. Do not collect your son en route. A seismic shift has just occurred in my life.
She takes her phone from her bag, checks for messages and puts it on the table in front of us. There’s a photo on the screen. He looks so like me.
‘I stayed away because you asked me to.’ I’ve picked up her phone and am staring at it. She doesn’t stop me. ‘I stayed away because you wanted the baby and I didn’t want Beth to know. I stayed away because you wanted it that way. You didn’t want money from me, nothing. It was easy at first but, since then, there have been so many times when I wanted to drive past the house and just catch a glimpse.’ I don’t confess to the many times when I have actually done this, as recently as a few weeks ago. I think of every birthday and Christmas Eve where I’ve just glanced in their windows, the wrapped gift on the passenger seat never delivered.
She squeezes my knee, puts her phone back in her bag.
‘You got married.’ I turn and look at her. ‘I stayed away, knew someone else was bringing him up. I stayed away because you didn’t need me. He didn’t need me.’
‘He needs you now,’ she says, ‘we really need you now.’
‘What does it involve?’ Part of me is listening as she explains the procedure and part of me is not. Whatever he needs, is all I can think. She takes my phone, opens up the Notes section, types in instructions and the phone number I need to start the process.
‘My moral compass,’ I tell her. ‘Will you please …’
‘Leave Tim to me. He’s very close to Noah.’
‘And Gordon?’
‘Gordon’s a good father.’
‘Are they close?’
She nods, tears finally falling from her beautiful eyes. I pull her to me. Her head rests a few moments on my chest. ‘I’m sorry, so sorry that you’ve had to deal with all of this.’
‘Don’t be. We’ll get through it.’ She stands up, already putting her coat on. ‘I’ve got to get back. I’ve still got calls to make about the move tomorrow, a mountain of paperwork still to sign.’ She wraps a scarf around her, slides her bag up her arm. ‘Will you tell Beth straight away?’ she asks, avoiding my eyes. ‘She’ll have to know when you ask Meg to help. It might be better coming from you first?’ Her leaking eyes now lock on mine.
‘You’re probably right. I’ll be in touch.’ I kiss her lightly on the cheek and we leave the bar together, Kiera turning right as we exit and me turning left.
‘Adam?’ she calls back to me. ‘Please, don’t take too long.’ Outside, the chilled evening air hits and I nod as I pull my jacket tight around me. I wrap my scarf, a Dr Who-style long scarf, a gift from Beth last Christmas, around me three times.
I walk quickly towards Bank station. Nervous anxiety grips my stomach. The thought that I may have to tell Beth everything … I can almost hear my head moan as I descend to the Underground.
I’m only just in the flat when my phone pings two messages. I glance at the screen, somehow expecting one to be from Kiera, so I’m surprised to see Emma’s name underneath Meg’s. I click on Meg first.
‘Hey Dad, have some ideas for grand gestures. Call me? x’
Grand gestures to get Beth back … Not if I move the Taj Mahal to Beth’s back garden will she forgive me when she finds out about Noah. And Meg – I’m not sure I can bear hearing her voice tonight.
Emma … We didn’t part well and I haven’t heard from her in over three weeks. At the time, though her Twitter feed never mentioned me by name, #dickhead appeared regularly in her tweets. I sign in, to see if I’ve missed something, if there’s an explanation for her sudden contact. Nothing. She’s been quiet in the Twitter-sphere for more than ten days. I check my phone again, read her message again. I don’t want to misunderstand.
‘Yours if you want, here tonight. No strings. Consider this a booty call. E. x’
I haven’t misunderstood and my dick automatically twitches at the thought of her. I miss fucking her. I miss it so much that, just for a moment, I think if I jump in the car now, I could be there in thirty minutes. It could help me forget … Just for a moment … Then, I text back an apology – something along the lines of: tempting though her offer is, it wouldn’t be a good idea. Still thinking of her, still salivating at the thought of her, I head to the shower. A DIY will have to do.
After lathering my body, washing my hair, I banish all other thoughts and summon an image of Emma naked and … nothing. The water’s hot. It’s too hot, I tell myself. I switch it to a cooler temperature, shiver at the shock, let it run for a moment or two and try again. What the hell? After towelling myself dry, I walk to the bedroom, lie on the bed and close my eyes. There’s a jumble of images in my head; only one is Emma naked, her rear end rising up towards me as I take her from behind. My eyes shoot open and I look down. Twitches. My dick is twitching but that’s it.
I close my eyes again and my son’s image, the one from Kiera’s phone, fills my eyelids. He’s there and, suddenly, he’s not; he’s in a hospital bed covered in a web of tubes. My mother’s face appears and I ask her to please leave. She is not welcome in my head-space tonight. She is absolutely not welcome. I curl up in a
foetal position and pull the duvet over me.
The last step on the stairway creaks but I’m so used to it that I take a little leap to avoid the sound. I walk up the narrow landing to my bedroom at the end, passing my parents’ room on the right. The door is shut, yet there are sounds from inside. I stop a moment, listen, my ear rested against one of the orange pine panels. My face creases in disgust. Lunchtime. Parents. Having sex. Not nice.
I let myself into my room quietly and go to draw the heavy curtains. The headache I’ve come home from college with is one that will only clear in a darkened room. My hand on the first drape, I know immediately. It’s like an electric shock to my system. The thoughts process quickly, the reality instant. My father’s car is not outside.
‘Who’s there?’ my mother’s voice sounds down the corridor. I stand still, unable to move. My door is opened.
‘Oh, it’s you.’ She runs a hand through her bed hair and ties her robe. She stares at me, her probing eyes focused on mine. Neither speaks but we both know. We both know.
I do the drive in twenty-five minutes. It’s late so I text her from outside rather than ring the bell. I see her bedroom light go on and she takes another five minutes to come downstairs. Her shadowy silhouette wafts behind the door. She opens it just wide enough to speak through.
‘You came,’ she says.
‘I’m here.’
‘I wasn’t sure you would, your life being so complicated and all that.’
The dig at my break-up speech does not go unnoticed.
She opens the door fully and I see that, under her robe, she is dressed identically to the image I had conjured up earlier. A tiny bra, matching thong, lacy stockings, heels. Christ … I move towards her. She holds a hand up.
‘Wait,’ she says.
‘It’s freezing out here, Emma.’ I rub my hands together for effect.
‘Why did you come?’
I can see her nipples through the thin cotton bra. They’re hard, pointing straight at me.
‘To fuck you, to see if I can fuck you.’ My honesty surprises me.
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